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  • 2 days ago
Former Vice President Mike Pence spoke about the Big Beautiful Bill during an interview on CNN Thursday.
Transcript
00:00As I said in the last segment, seeing the president reaffirm that commitment to American leadership on the world stage,
00:09seeing him sign last week a bill that extended all the Trump-Pence tax cuts
00:15when some of the populist voices were literally talking about raising the top marginal rate,
00:20which would have been the largest tax increase in American history.
00:25So you think the Mike Pence lane still exists in the Republican Party?
00:29I mean, it does appear that the Mike Pence lane, the tried and true conservative, traditional conservative that we know of,
00:38definitely does not have the loudest, most powerful voice in the party right now.
00:44Yeah, well, I wouldn't be presumptuous to call it the Mike Pence lane.
00:48I'm calling it that.
00:49This is a conservative party and has been a conservative party since the days of Barry Goldwater,
00:57since the day of Ronald Reagan.
01:00It also has some tried and true conservatives.
01:01That's why they are so upset about that tax and spending bill, because it adds $3 trillion to the deficit and debt.
01:07Like, you've got...
01:08But that's what, you know, that's an area where I would respectfully disagree with Senator Tillis.
01:13I would have had no problem voting for the one big beautiful bill,
01:18because it extended all of the Trump-Pence tax cuts.
01:21It introduced significant Medicaid reform.
01:25It defunded Planned Parenthood for the first time in history.
01:29And all of those things speak to that conservative agenda in the Republican Party.
01:35And I think it's alive and well.
01:38And I think it's important that Republicans offer the American people a choice, not an echo.
01:45I mean, when I see the populist right saying that we need to pull back on the world stage,
01:53we need to embrace big government programs, price controls,
01:56that we're against reforming entitlements, that we don't want to talk about the right to life,
02:01that sounds like the agenda of the Democratic Party.
02:05And I expect that you're going to continue to see the Republican Party stay on that track of conservatism
02:14in the days ahead, and whatever the future holds for me, I'm going to be a voice for that.
02:19Part of that bill is the Medicaid cuts.
02:23In Indiana, the state you and I love so much, 26% of people there are on Medicaid.
02:28A dozen rural hospitals are at risk of closing.
02:31And Tom Tillis says the real-life consequences of the Medicaid cuts are going to be politically devastating,
02:38pushing people off of Medicaid.
02:41Do you agree?
02:42I don't.
02:43I don't.
02:44And, in fact, in our four years in the administration,
02:47we pushed hard at HHS to create work requirements in Medicaid.
02:54And now it is in the law and in the federal budget.
02:58And I give the president and his team all the credit in the world for doing that.
03:03When I was governor of Indiana, where we're both from and proud,
03:07I actually introduced health savings accounts into Medicaid.
03:12We got the very first waiver ever to create consumer-directed aspects of Medicaid.
03:20The key is we've got to reform these programs.
03:23We certainly don't want people who are in this country illegally to be receiving Medicaid benefits.
03:28We want those resources to go to people who really need them.
03:31And I think that's what Congress did.
03:32When he says it's politically devastating, going to be for Republicans,
03:36if you don't agree with him, when you look at the landscape now,
03:39what do you think poses the biggest risk to Republicans in the midterms?
03:44Well, I think now having passed the one big, beautiful bill,
03:50which may turn out to be the one big bill they do,
03:54because they did it all together, I think they've got to tell their story.
03:59You know, I was the third-ranking Republican during my time in the Congress.
04:03I was not only led the conservative caucus, but I was the conference chairman.
04:08And I understand that if you can't communicate, you can't govern.
04:11And I think it's absolutely essential, and I'd say to every one of my former friends
04:16or former colleagues and my friends in Congress,
04:19is get out across America, talk about what you did here.

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